Cupcakes “Strawberry Patch”

Ingredients:

• 24 chocolate cupcakes
• 4 cups American chocolate buttercream
• 1 cup crushed chocolate wafer cookies (about 200 g)
• 9 small fresh strawberries with leaves
• 7 store-bought or homemade fondant flowers
• 220 g of green mastic
• Butterfly, caterpillar or ladybug made of mastic
• Special equipment: mini spatula; cardboard egg carton, toothpicks, pencils

Preparation:

1. Cover the cupcakes with buttercream.
2. Place half of the crushed wafer cookies on a plate or tray large enough to hold 24 cupcakes. Arrange the cupcakes in four rows of six. Sprinkle generously over the cupcakes and around the edges of the plate.
3. Place strawberries on several cupcakes. Arrange fondant flowers on several cupcakes.
4. Poke holes in a cardboard egg carton. Pinch off pea-sized or smaller pieces of green fondant and roll them out on a work surface to resemble blades of grass, leaving one end thick and the other thin and pointed.
5. Press 2-5 blades of grass together and stick them onto the tip of a toothpick. Let them set upright in an egg carton.
6. Roll the remaining green fondant between your palms to form 10 thin strawberry tendrils, 5–7 cm long. Wrap them around the pencils and set aside to harden. Arrange the tendrils randomly under the strawberries.
7. Place a fondant insect, such as a butterfly, caterpillar, or ladybug, on top of one cupcake.